Lady Grace & the War for a New World (Earth's End Book 2) (12 page)

Mel laughed. “Not everything, Sam, but I’d be glad to tutor you.”

Sam could barely breathe. He’d told them almost everything. Everything but what he dare not share. They would hate him if they knew that.
She
would hate him.

“Who takes care of the disabled people?” Lena asked.

“I do.” Sam was shaking. “The Bigs wanted to have sport with them and kill them, but I hid them. I take them food. We have tunnels and secret places that the Bigs don’t know. The diggers made them—I am a digger. Sam Baahuhd was the first digger. I hid the children, too.”

“Children?”

“The children of the lines of Arthur and Winnie and Sam but not Mollie. The Bigs kill them. I took them from the nursery and hid them in a secret place. I fed them.” He could hardly breathe.

“How many of them are there, Sam?” Lena asked.

“Eleven children. Good children. They will die with me gone.”

Ellie held her hands to her cheeks, silver eyes wide and gleaming. She grabbed at Jeremy. He pulled her close and shot Sam a dirty look.

“Help babies, Jeremy,” she whispered. “Help them.”

“Sweetie, don’t worry. We’ll get it fixed.” He turned to his mother. “Mom, Ellie and I are going to sleep in the container tonight. She’s had a hard time.”

“Certainly, dear. Just put Sam’s and my things outside the door.”

Jeremy carried Ellie to the container, shooting Sam another look. Sam was shaken by it, but the conversation continued after Ellie and Jeremy left.

“Do you want us to help save your people, son?” Henry asked.

“Yes! But I dinna know how many can live out here. It’s hard for me. Those who canna walk or talk … The children could live here. They should be saved.”

“And the Bigs?”

“They should all be killed. If they come here, they will kill the men and take the women.”

“What about the women in the shelter?”

Sam looked down again. “They’re in the pit. Some are crazy, and some have become like the Bigs. They like to hurt and torture the weak ones. All the women have the smell.”

“The smell?”

“Yes, between the legs. They are sick. And they are bad, too.”

The group looked at each other.

“We need to take a good look at those pictures tomorrow,” Mel said.

“You’re right,” Henry agreed. “First thing in the morning.”

James had been very quiet. “We just got out of someplace bad. This sounds a thousand times worse. What can we possibly do? I think we should …” He made a hopeless gesture. “We should forget the whole thing. It’s not our problem.”

“It is our problem, James. You should have seen Sam when we found him. In addition to being emaciated and covered with funguses, they put an eye in his belly. Like those we had in the ceilings before the war so the government could spy on us. Russian techs developed a portable form that was surgically inserted under the carrier’s skin. It was used for surveillance or as a bomb. They almost always kill the carrier.” Veronica turned to Sam. “Why did they put that thing in you? Why did they throw you out the canary hole?” she asked softly.

Sam’s voice dropped to a murmur. “I am a digger.” He spoke as though the others should know what that meant, as though it was a badge of distinction. “We are kept in different rooms so we cannot talk. I make tunnels to go from one room to another. I bring messages and food. I hide things. They caught me. The first time, they didn’t kill me.” His body trembled. “When they caught me again, they took my sister. The last time, they put the eye on me.”

“They killed your sister?” Henry gasped.

“After they were done,” he said, looking down. “I didn’t stop digging, so they put the eye on me to see where I was going. If I stopped, they hurt me to make me go. I was going to die, so they put me out the hole.”

The people around the circle stared at him.

“OK, everyone,” Henry broke the silence. “We just got a reality check on our neighbors. We’ve had a short honeymoon back on Earth. Tomorrow, we’ll begin to deal with it. Right now, though, I want something that I haven’t had for a very long time. Veronica, did the general put any of that good Russian vodka in his things?”

“He certainly did, Henry. I wouldn’t mind a bit myself.” She got up and went to the storage unit, returning with a bottle of clear liquid and some glasses. “See, only the best.” She held the bottle out so they could see the imperial crest. “The Tsar’s own.”

Henry stood up to help her pour. “Anyone? Did what Sam had to say give anyone a thirst?” The others raised their hands.

“Me, too!”

“Me, three.”

Sam sat, jaws clenched, hands curled into fists. He couldn’t believe what they were going to do. As the lady began to pour, he shot to his feet, grabbed the bottle and threw it over the edge of the cliff. He heard it shatter on the rocks below.

“It is against the Commands!” He turned to them. “Ye don’ understand!

“I keep the Commands. Without the Commands, I would be the same as the Bigs!” he shouted, anguished.

He ran to the farthest corner of the cave and slid down the wall. He sat with his arms wrapped around his knees, shivering.

They would come for him now and beat him. Or perhaps throw him off the cliff. He could hear them talking about him.

“Sam, I want to apologize to you,” Henry was the only one who approached him. “I’ve never been a slave, but my people have. I know in my bones what it’s like to have no rights, to have the man beat you or rape you or do anything he wants to you, any time. We disrespected something that means everything to you—the Commands and your beliefs. The United States Constitution gave everyone freedom of religion, but we didn’t allow you that back at that campfire. We won’t do that again. You have my friendship, Sam.”

Henry bent down and embraced him. Sam watched him go to where he and Lena were sleeping. What had happened was more shocking than if Henry had taken a stick to him.

Everyone had walked away from the fire, going to separate sleeping places. Panic overtook Sam. His people lived in the darkness in tiny rooms. They touched each other. They couldn’t see, so they oriented themselves with touch. Touch kept them from going crazy. Touch became sight.

His skin cried out for contact. They would have touched him underground, because they knew how hard talking about what he had was. All of it was punishable with death.

If he could have slept with her, it would have been all right. They’d slept together the nights before. But she had gone. He picked up his pad and looked for a place to spend the night.

Veronica remembered Sam’s earnest face over the campfire. Jeremy had sat near Sam. They looked like they were about the same age. What had she been thinking?

She thrashed in her bed, unable to get comfortable. If she missed Sam’s warm strength of the night before, tough. The aching inside would subside and the longing would go away. She was in control.

Her mantra went around in her mind, not quite obscuring the image of his beautiful face.

15

Sam’s face felt wooden and his eyes ached. He’d spent the night exploring the cave and ancient dwellings. Night was his time; he could see very well in the dark, and he could feel and sense better than that. He knew their entire domain by the morning, moving past sleeping bodies without being detected.

He paused at her spot. She didn’t sleep, either. She had chosen a shallow cave in the back of the main cavern for her sleeping place. It wasn’t a good place—it gave no privacy or protection. He stood by it and listened, then moved past. She didn’t know that he had heard her weeping.

The cave had many smaller grottos carved into the rear walls. Some were smoothly sculpted. He didn’t know how to explain them; they were unlike the underground with its angular surfaces of poured concrete or the dirt burrows made by diggers.

The walls of the smaller caves were smooth and hard, made so by wind and rain, not people. He had little experience of natural forces. Sam had heard rain on the glass above the solar growing fields and seen it roll down the panes. He hadn’t felt wind until he was outside. He still hadn’t felt rain. Touching the walls soothed him.

People had carved some grottos deeper into the cliff. He could tell by the angular cuts and straight surfaces. Diggers had once lived here. Something rattled when he entered one alcove. He backed out.

Close to dawn, he found a series of joined caves on the side closest to where the sun had gone down, away from the others. A large chamber merged with the main cave. It had several smaller rooms in back where a person or two could sleep. He put his bedding in the largest of the spaces, claiming the entire cluster as his own. He had never known better quarters or so much room. It was a place where a man could have a family.

Sam had spent the dregs of the night touching the stone walls of his new abode. He took off his clothes and rubbed every bit of his skin on the rock. Shoulders, arms, back. All of himself. Then he rolled into a ball on the floor. Sleep claimed him for an hour.

When he came out of his cave onto the ledge, the lady was standing in front of the first container, talking to Jeremy and Ellie. He couldn’t hear their voices, but they stood close together. They didn’t smile. Jeremy put his arm around Ellie and drew her toward the adobe houses. The lady whirled and headed toward the edge of the ledge. His eyes followed her, but he was afraid to approach her. She looked furious.

“Well, are you ready, Sam?” Henry’s voice startled him. The others were standing in a huddle where the fire had been the night before. Henry had approached from that direction. “Today’s the day we go through the container and see what we’re going to wear for the rest of our lives.”

Sam turned to look for the lady. She had stormed as far away as she could. She stood with her back to them, hands clenched.

16

Damn! Damn! Damn! How could they think of doing that to that lovely girl? Jeremy had told her the goldies’ plans for Eliana and the human men.

Is there anywhere in the universe where women aren’t targets of abuse? she thought. She felt like opening the munitions container and blasting everything she saw. But that wouldn’t be enough. Her chest rose and fell. Girls were always the target. Pretty girls.

Forcing herself to breathe deeply, Veronica managed to control her rage enough to see the sparkling scene spreading out below her. The golden meadow, curving river, wide-open oak savannah, and the thick forest to the east. Far away, she could see the depression in the trees that indicated the ocean was beyond.

Look at it, Veronica, she thought. What do you see?

A brittle snort escaped her. Once, her family’s estate had covered half the basin. The mansion had been right over there, out of sight in the trees. Fifty thousand square feet under one roof. If that wasn’t enough, she had her other ranches and homes. And factories, plants, and facilities around the globe.

All of it was gone.

She’d had her ownership records copied and carried them with her on a cylinder, hoping that she’d be able to claim what was hers, one day. Another choked snort escaped. Where? How? No legal system existed. No laws, government. No place to record ownership.

Hilarity swept her. She’d forgotten something: She was bankrupt. She’d mortgaged everything she had to fund bomb shelters for people all over the world.

As it turned out, only the shelter on the estate survived. The mega-shelter created with federal funds, the general’s money, and her own. And look what happened there. Mutants and monsters. She choked back biting laughter.

She laughed so hard that tears came. It was just so funny … Her hands went to her face. She felt like someone had cast it in plaster. She hadn’t slept at all the night before.

Suck it up, Edgarton! Kick it! Fight it! Her spine yanked her erect. Fight or you’ll die. She heard a noise behind her. They were all waiting, thinking the container could be unpacked like a suitcase. Idiots. Kick it, Edgarton. Move it.

She spun and headed for the group with a stride straight from boot camp. The others pulled away.

“Well, Veronica? Do you need our help unloading boxes?” Henry smiled at her.

“This was a military operation, Henry, not a bunch of kids going camping,” she spit the words at him, voice full of scorn. “Do you think we packed things in cardboard boxes?”

She opened the container’s outer doors. Metallic cabinets reached from ceiling to floor. The only free space was the narrow aisle down the middle and a four-foot space in the container’s front and rear.

“We packed both units ‘last in, first out,’ so that what we needed the most when we got out would be the first thing we got to.” Waving at the cabinet of medical supplies to the left of the door, she said, “Those are just the basics. We have more supplies and a surgical theater stored farther in. Unfortunately, the doctors are dead.” She repressed the urge to laugh.

Veronica opened a recessed cabinet on the container’s right side and pulled out a thick binder. “This is the printed manifest. It’s printed on fireproof plastic—virtually indestructible. The printout can’t be corrupted or become obsolete. But I’m going to bet that the electronic version is good.” She pulled a tablet computer with a metallic cover from the niche.

“There’s a track on the ceiling and the floor. The storage units move around the track electronically. We can also muscle them, if the power’s dead. They’re all labeled,” a wave at the writing down the front of the big chests, “in Russian, of course. Anybody read Russian beside me?” She looked at them haughtily.

“I’m fluent in Russian,” Mel said sharply. “The rest of us can speak some.”

“Good. You’ll need it. Jeremy? Is Jeremy here?”

He jogged up. “I’m here, Mom. Ellie’s not feeling well. I’m not going to stay long.”

“What do we need most, Jeremy?”

“Solar panels. Almost all the computers are out of juice. If we don’t get them recharged, we’re screwed. Then I’d say some way of getting off this cliff.”

“OK.” Veronica powered up the tablet computer, checking its readings. “Bingo. Solar panels are in the second container on the right. Jeremy, you’ll have to move all the computers.”

“It’s like a drycleaner,” Henry said, looking at the track on the ceiling.

“Yes, exactly like a drycleaner’s overhead track for storing and delivering garments. Except that our track packs a payload that our lives depend upon.”

Jeremy and the others carefully moved the computers out of the way.

She pointed the electronic tablet at a control on the wall. A light went on. She pushed a button. The hanging containers jerked, then settled into place. She tried it again. They didn’t move.

“Dead. We’ll have to muscle the units around so we can get at the solar panels. Just grab the outside edge and pull. I’m going to see if I can find some ladders.” She concentrated on the manifest while the others grabbed the first unit and tried to drag it along the tracks.

“Let me try,” Sam said. She glanced at him and then looked back at the monitor. When she looked up, he had the first hanging box moving around the track, heading to the other side of the container. He pulled the second box forward.

“Yes, there they are,” Veronica indicated the Russian script on the front of the box. “Solar panels. The box opens like this. Here they are: enough panels to power a community of eight. Now we have to set them up and get them going.”

Jeremy ran to the storage container that held the weapons and opened it. He’d wanted to do what he was doing since the unit had arrived. He was sick of feeling scared of the Bigs and looking at the others’ frightened faces. Jeremy returned, carrying an automatic rifle.

“OK, you guys. This is how we’ll handle the Bigs.” Pointing the gun at a tree by the river, Jeremy opened fire. The top of the tree cracked and toppled.

“Give that to me, Jeremy.” Veronica snatched the gun, looking like she’d like to slap him. “You don’t treat firearms like that. Or trees. You should see the camps, Jeremy, and what that monster did. You would never get excited about a gun.”

With that, she whirled, took the rifle out of automatic and fired three shots. The entire tree fell. “We have enough firepower to blow ourselves to eternity. Let’s just unload the crate, OK? We can go through the manifest and see what would make our lives better right now. There’s coffee, spices, and foodstuffs. Lots of things.”

They began to work furiously, Veronica searching the manifest and the others helping Sam move the containers along the tracks and open them.

“Here it is—what I was looking for.” Veronica exclaimed, holding up the monitor. “The ladders! They’re in the sixth box back. There should be a couple hundred feet of chain ladders and I don’t know how much chain. All we have to do is figure out some way of anchoring them, and we’ll be able to go up and down and to the river. Could everyone keep your eyes out for a wooden box? It’s about this big,” she indicated its size. “There’s a book in it with roses on the cover that I especially want.”

Veronica was going through the foodstuffs when Jeremy ran to her, anguish on his face.

“Mom, it’s Ellie. She looks like she’s dying.”